The situation in Donbass as of August 1st, 2018, is reminiscent in one important way of the First World War, whose anniversary was also yesterday.

Trench warfare is that very state that determines the essence of the currently sluggish armed conflict. However, even in the state of “no war, no peace” Donbass people continue to die. Last week two servicemen of the Donetsk People’s Republic died in a mortar attack by Ukrainian forces in the village of Sahanka. The victims were unarmed, they were directing humanitarian cargo for distribution to residents of the frontline village.

During the week from 23 to 29 July, Ukrainian security forces fired more than one ton of ammunition across the frontline areas of the Donetsk People’s Republic. This has been reported by the head of the DPR’s office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination, Ruslan Yakubov. According to the same source, August 1st 11 ceasefire violations by Ukrainian forces with the shelling of the frontline village of Spartak (north of Donetsk) with five mortars and the pounding of DPR frontline territories with over 80 shells.

Overall, however, the number of attacks on DPR territory might have decreased due due to UAF frontline units undergoing large-scale inspections. This view has been expressed by the spokesman of the DPR”s operational command, Daniil Bezsonov.

The front line in the DPR and LPR has stabilized. In recent weeks, no serious attempts to capture the neutral zone have been attempted despite Ukrainian forces’ persistent reputation of forays into the “grey zones.” A general lull set it during the World Cup in Russia. This tactic bore fruit: the enemy’s positions were closed in on, which allowed for the more active use of sniper groups. However, now there is relative calm.

Perhaps this is a lull before a new surge of activity to include the participation of snipers from NATO countries. As I have already reported with reference to my sources in the DPR, unnaturally skilled snipers have been spotted on the Ukrainian side.

My friends in the DPR army believe that the level of their professional training and technical equipment allows us to conclude that we are dealing with NATO snipers. Confirmation of this might have finally come from the intelligence of the people’s republic of Donbass.

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On July 31, the official spokesman of the People’s Militia of the LPR, Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Marochko, reported that the Ukrainian command had transferred to the line of demarcation in the zone of the “Operation United Forces” a unit of Polish female snipers from a Polish private military company (PMC).

The participation of fighters from Poland has been recorded on the line of contact with the LPR more than a few times. As for another NATO state, my friends in the DPR army have often reported about combat “contacts” with “colleagues” from Canada.

The Ukrainian army continues to suffer losses. Moreover, so-called non-combat losses now exceed losses from clashes with the DPR and LPR armies. I have studied in detail the daily and weekly statistics of non-combat losses in the ranks of the former “ATO”, and I can testify that these casualties are on an impressive scale. While local and regional newspapers in Ukraine and the Donbass republics are usually the sources for such data, I will refer directly to the official data of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

In the zone of military operations in Donbass, two to three soldiers commit suicide weekly, as the chief military prosecutor of Ukraine, Anatoly Matios, revealed on TV. President Poroshenko’s humanitarian advisor, Olga Bogomolets, stated in September 2017 that over the course of the war, that is, since the spring of 2014, “more than 500 of our soldiers have killed themselves due to post-traumatic syndrome.” Note: this is official data announced by someone close to President Poroshenko.

New facts of non-combat losses arrived last week which reveal a new trend. UAF soldiers are killing each other over nationality. On July 31, a Ukrainian soldier by the name of Androshchuk, unable to bear the humiliation and abuse and in a state of alcoholic intoxication, opened automatic fire on his nationalist colleagues who forbid him to speak in his native Russian tongue.

On July 30, a UAF officer shot and killed without trial a contract soldier from Lugansk who the day before had fired his machine gun at two colleagues who scoffed at his native soil.

Thus, over the past week, in the Ukrainian armed forces 5 people were killed as a result of conflicts over the language of communication. The Russian language is becoming a fatal danger in Ukraine, including in the ranks of patriots allegedly defending Ukraine. Note that the Russian language is the language of communication of a significant number of Ukrainian Nazis as well, especially from the eastern regions of Ukraine (historical Novorossiya). Earlier in a 2010 article on Ukrainian nationalism, I predicted a conflict between these two versions of the “old” Galician nationalism and the “new” Eastern Ukrainian one. It is possible that this conflict around language will acquire a larger scale, and Ukrainian-speaking “patriots” will kill Russian-speaking “patriots” of Ukraine.

Eduard Popov is a Rostov State University graduate with a PhD in history and philosophy. In 2008, he founded the Center for Ukrainian Studies of the Southern Federal University of Russia, and from 2009-2013, he was the founding head of the Black Sea-Caspian Center of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, an analytical institute of the Presidential Administration of Russia. In June 2014, Popov headed the establishment of the Representative Office of the Donetsk People’s Republic in Rostov-on-Don and actively participated in humanitarian aid efforts in Donbass. In addition to being Fort Russ’ guest analyst since June, 2016, Popov is currently the leading research fellow of the Institute of the Russian Abroad and the founding director of the Europe Center for Public and Information Cooperation.